Tag: Lord Sharkey

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Sharkey on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government which commercial organisations are permitted to promote or distribute their products or the products of other organisations in NHS maternity wards; what revenues accrue to the Government or the NHS from that activity; and what evidence there is that patients welcome such activity.

Lord Prior of Brampton

National Health Service trusts may negotiate locally with commercial organisations to distribute advice, information and ‘try before you buy’ samples that they think would be useful for pregnant women.

Neither the Department nor NHS England centrally have any contracts with Bounty or influence over the contents of the packs nor does the Department benefit financially from such arrangements. We do not have any information about what contracts might exist between Bounty and individual NHS trusts.

Although we are aware of Bounty distributing their packs on maternity wards, we have no evidence of whether or not this is welcomed by parents.

Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) use the services of Bounty to help distribute Child Benefit claim packs to new mothers in NHS hospitals. The contract for this service is held by HMRC’s Print Vendor Provider, Williams Lea. Using the Bounty pack as one channel for distributing Child Benefit forms has proved efficient and cost effective. The Child Benefit form can also be obtained through other channels, notably the HMRC website.

In 2012-13, HMRC paid £85,990.27 (excluding VAT) for Bounty to distribute a total of 857,939 English and Welsh language claim forms.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Sharkey on 2015-01-15.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what criteria they use for assessing the effectiveness of the Prevent and Channel counter-terrorism programmes; what targets have been set for any aspects of these programmes; and what key performance indicators are in place.

Lord Bates

The Home Office assess the effectiveness of the Prevent and Channel programmes through a range of performance mechanisms.

We have publically reported on a number of performance indicators such as internet removals and projects delivered. For example, since December 2013 over 53,000 pieces of unlawful terrorist-related content which encourages or glorifies acts of terrorism have been removed from the internet. And since 2011, 180 local projects have been delivered in Prevent priority areas, including projects in education, internet safety, and families.

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Sharkey on 2015-10-05.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, before withdrawing supplementary funding for the highly specialist work carried out at tertiary and teaching hospitals in England, they carried out an impact assessment of the effects of such a withdrawal on medical research; if not, why they did not do so; and if so, whether they will publish that assessment.

Lord Prior of Brampton

The supplementary funding, known as Project Diamond funding, was provided by the former London Strategic Health Authority in recognition of arguments made by providers about the higher costs of tertiary and teaching hospitals both for research and service provision. The research component was subsequently taken on by the Department, and the service component was taken on by NHS England.

In the case of research funding, the Department’s view is that the approach to funding already recognises the higher costs of providing services. For example, a large part of funding is bids based. In bidding for research funding, providers will have taken into account all the costs they face. Any supplementary funding would be double-counting costs. Consequently the Department does not expect an impact on medical research from withdrawing funding as existing funding streams should meet all costs.

In the case of funding for specialised services to patients, 2014/15 was the final year of supplementary funding provided by NHS England. Refinements to the National Tariff are being made, including the introduction of HRG4+, that make a significant improvement in recognising the additional costs associated with patient complexity. However no payment system can perfectly reflect patient complexity and other local issues. Monitor have a published process for providers who wish to seek an amendment to tariff prices, known as the local modification process.